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leaves and a small packet of betel nuts. On his way back, he met his future daughter-in-law and her parents.
She stopped and looked at him in surprise. “Why, Chandarnath, what are you doing here?”
He stood at the bottom of the stairs gazing at herstupidly, a deep ache beginning to fill him. The only thing he could think of was that Bikaner had not yet told her who his parents were. His words came out with a slow, cold force. “I live here.”
The smile on her face faded briefly. She patted her sleek hair and said, “I am here to see my new in-laws. Bikaner Sahib, you know.”
Chandar nodded, the paan weighing down on his hands. There was nothing to do but follow her upstairs. They got into the lift together, Chandar standing at the very back, counting the levels with his eyes on the ground. At the sixteenth floor, he got out also. The girl said, “Did Bikaner Sahib hire you to do some extra work for today?” Then she ignored him as they all went to the door. Meha saw their confusion and threw questioning glances at Chandar, but he explained nothing, simply slipping into the flat to take his place by his son, his hands folded in a namaste. To her credit, the girl too covered up her shock. A wedding date was arranged.
By now, the tiny flat Chandar bought had tripled in value. It was fully paid off. In Mumbai where every little square inch was covered with either humanity, animals, hoardings or buildings, Chandar and Meha owned three hundred and fifty-six square feet of prime property. The local paper said that even in New York City space was not so expensive. The new daughter-in-law settled in quite happily in the bedroom while Meha and Chandar slept on the floor of the kitchen. The flat was more than adequate compensation for a security guard father-in-law. But the girl insisted thatMeha stop working; she could not go to the bank and tell her colleagues that her mother-in-law cleaned other peoples’ latrines, she said.
When she spoke like that, Meha was ashamed too. For many years she had swept and mopped floors, washed vessels and clothes, kneaded atta for chappatis, cleaned latrines, even wiped the snotty noses and the dirty bums of her mistresses’ children. The money she earned had paid in part for the flat, had paid to get them off the footpath into their own home. But now she was ashamed.
Bikaner and the daughter-in-law had two children; first, a boy born much in the same mold as his father, then a girl who looked like Meha. Then Chandar retired. The bank rewarded his loyalty with a small pension and a gold-plated watch.
Over the years Bikaner had grown more and more irritable with his parents, somehow more restless with himself. Meha wonders if they had done something wrong, if there had been some way to teach him peace along with those alphabet lessons under the halogen streetlamp. It was not something taught, but something earned, she knew. For all their troubles, Chandar and she still smiled. They smile even now. Now when there is no turning back.
Bikaner tried to pass the officer-grade exams three times; his failures reduced him to a caricature in the office. He came home every day in a bitter mood. Meha tried to consolehim. Better not to be an officer, beta, she had said, too many transfers to small towns and villages. Better to be a clerk. Bikaner shouted at her when she said anything, and Meha was reminded of those early days when he did not know English, when his schoolmates had called him names, lallu, lout, clod, farmer’s son, as though that last were an insult. Bikaner wanted to be a manager one day. Clerks did not become managers. Officers did. Everything snapped the day Chandar retired from the bank. He had come home, his eyes full of tears, the watch gleaming on his wrist.
“Give it to me,” Bikaner said all of a sudden as they were eating dinner.
“What?”
In response Bikaner leaned over, wiped Chandar’s hand on a nearby towel, and slipped the watch off his hand. He said calmly, “I